Dim sum are little Chinese nibbles, most often spiced and diced bits of meat and shellfish stuffed into buns or wrapped with dough, then steamed or deep-fried. The menu lists the options but doesn't explain what the heck anything is (here's one, just to help you out -- hai gow are steamed balls of dough-wrapped shrimp). Don't bother ordering from the menu; instead, wait as steam carts are pushed around the room and toward you, and the cart pusher pulls the lids off the many little pots, exposing various tasties within. (Dim sum service stops at 3pm except by special order.) You could ask for identification, but the answers might scare you -- and scare you off something quite marvelous. (We first tried chicken feet -- yep -- to impress a mainland-born Chinese friend, and liked it very much indeed.) So be brave and just point at something that looks good. Find out what you ate later. Or never. Sometimes it's just better that way.

This strip-mall, cheerful, family-friendly (but possibly smoky) restaurant is a good place to experiment, and is usually full of local and visiting Asians, which is a stamp of authenticity. Highly recommended are the rice-noodle-wrapped shrimp, and anything in a dumpling, particularly the pan-fried ones stuffed with vegetables. For such seemingly small portions, dim sum can be quite filling, so it works as both a snack and a potentially cheap meal. For some reason probably having to do with quantum physics, we've noticed that whenever we eat dim sum, alone, in a pair, or in a group of 12, the bill always works out to approximately $9 a person. Go figure.